SNL Powerhouse Aidy Bryant’s Dressing Room is Her “Little Cozy Home”

In the world of entertainment, dressing rooms become more like home than the space you actually pay rent for. You spend the majority of time in this tiny room where you feel everything to the extreme—happiness, sadness, anxiety, and everything in between. And Aidy Bryant just shared her SNL haven with the world on Instagram, where she’s felt it all. 

As part of SNL series “Stories From the Show,” the comedian and actress told stories of memories spent in her tiny (but cozy) dressing room. Not only did we get a glimpse of the space—white walls, a pink hanging paper lantern, gray couch—but the personal items and moments that make it home. 

First, Bryant recalled her dressing room during the first few seasons she was at SNL, which was shared by multiple cast members and writers since they weren’t in the show too often. (This is where she grew a strong connection with Kate McKinnon and Cecily Strong.) Eventually, Bryant upgraded to “beautiful digs” of her own, with zero windows, carpet, and a new couch (because the old one was eaten by moths…casual). But by adding little things that made her happy, it became her home base (three days a week, at least) in no time.

Bryant described a framed photo of her with her husband in the back of a taxi giving the middle finger to the camera (photographer: Colin Jost), and various lotions and potions for camouflaging when the going gets rough. “We work these insane hours, at the end of it you have to come back here usually and keep going. I mostly use this space to recoup in some way,” said Bryant. 

With the bad comes the good, though, and Bryant recalled a moment of joy that happened in her dressing room—the first time she said “Live from New York!” She was hosting a presidential debate skit, and she couldn’t have cue cards in front of her, so she remembered reciting “good evening, good evening” over and over in her dressing room nervously before going live. But it was a total 360-moment after the scene wrapped up: Bill Hader and Tom Hanks, who were both in the sketch, ran Byrant down the hall where all the hair, makeup, and costume people clapped, and Bryant recalled was just “one of the coolest moments.” 

“I think of my office as a place for collaboration and people to come by and for us to write together, and I think of it much more as a quiet space,” said Bryant. ”If people come in here, it’s usually to talk about how nervous we are. Every time a sketch ends you have to run, and someone’s pulling your pants down, and you have to rip your shirt off. This is one of the few places that we can find a little quiet, and it’s nice to have a nice little cozy home.”